The Tooth Fairy
smiled. Her teeth were small, yellow and
crooked. “I’ll tell you… but first you
must catch me!”

She turned into a
firefly and flew out of the tent.

I yelled, “Magic? That’s cheating!” Then I launched myself after her.

I followed her out
of the tent, into the yard, through entrance 17, and into a twisty corridor. It split in two, and I took the left-hand
fork. The corridor made a dizzy twist kata, into the fourth dimension. Then the corridor turned upwards and curled into
a left-handed corkscrew. Next it opened
into the air.

I pinged. I was flying up Church Way in a left-handed
corkscrew. Traffic was light: a small
dragon, a bevy of witches, a Yeti and some robots. Someone was flying next to me, corkscrewing
right-hand. He looked like me, but was
he a mirror image? Or my previous self? Or maybe the shape-shifting Tooth Fairy,
pretending to be me?

“Not rat: mouse. Tooth mouse,” I said, and then flapped off
into hyperspace.

I flicked ana, into the fourth dimension, to wing my
way through time back to where-and-when I was. Time loops. I hate those things.

Blip it, the magic
lady had me flying in a circle! Well, at
least I’d closed off the time loop. You
mustn’t leave them hanging open.

But enough with
talking to myself! Back to the chase!

Back to the fork
in the corridor. I took the other branch
this time.

She was waiting for me there, blip it! She gave out that creepy cackle. “Hee,
he-he-he heee!I am a robin, and I
shall fly, far far away!”

And once again,
she used magic. She turned into a robin,
and flew away.

Now I don’t know that
much about magic, but I do know some, and the first rule of magic is: Two Can
Play That Game.So I said, “Then I am an
eagle, and I shall overtake you!” And I turned into an eagle, and the
transformation chase was on.

Just before I
caught her, she said, “I am the Sun, high in the sky!” and she became the Sun; but I said, “Then I am the Moon, and I shall
eclipse you!”

And I became the
Moon, and I began to eclipse her, but just before totality she said, “I am an
electron, flying on the solar wind!” She
became an electron, and she rode the solar wind; but I said, “Then I am a photon, flying at
light speed!”

I flew at
light-speed, but just before I caught her she said, “I am a squid, hidden in
the dark deep ocean!” and she became a squid; but I said, “Then I am a whale, sounding
for squid!”

I pinged for her,
and echolocated her, and swam towards her, but she said, “I am a marlin, and I
shall outswim you!” She became a marlin,
and she swam away, faster than me; but I
said, “Then I am a fisherman, and I shall catch you!”

I stood at the end
of a pier and cast my net for her, but she said, “I am a cat, and I shall slip
away from you!” She became a cat, and
she slipped away from me, off the pier and into town. But I said, “Then I am a dog, and I shall
chase you down!”

I chased her through
the town, down a street, and into an alley. It dead-ended, and I had her cornered. “Talk!” I barked. “Talk! Talk! Talk!”

She arched her
back, bristled her fur and spat, “I’ll talk!”

I sat down and
said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah?”

She yowled, “I
useta be a Goddess!”

There was a flash
of light and a blat of noise. When my
ears and eyes cleared, I saw that we were back in the tent. I was hanging out by a fold of ceiling-cloth,
and she was seated at a crystal ball. It
was like we hadn’t moved at all.

“A Goddess!” she continued,
as if nothing had happened. “I had
temples and priests, and best of all – believers!”

“So what
happened?”

“What else?They stopped believing! Nowadays, all I’ve got to live on is kiddy
faith! No more nutritious delicious grown-up
belief for me to eat!”

“You eat belief?”

“Oh, didn’t you
know? Faith is the food of the gods.”

“But now you only
get kiddy-faith?”

“And it’s not a
balanced diet! Excuse me,” the Tooth
Fairy said. She reached into her mouth
and took out her teeth. She gummed a toothless
smile and snapped her dentures at me. She
put that set on the table, next to the crystal ball, picked up another set and
put them in. The Tooth Fairy smacked in her
new dentures and said, “Like I said, kiddy faith’s an unbalanced diet: too
sweet, too light, no heavy elements.So
I lost my old teeth. But, I make do. After all, I’m the Tooth Fairy.”

“Hey, are those kid’s
teeth?”

The Tooth Fairy
smiled at me. Her teeth were small,
yellow and crooked.

I said, “Eeew!”

She cackled: “Hee, he-he-he heee!Kids will believe anything, no matter how
gross or weird! And that’s how I survive.”

“But without their
belief… you’d starve?”

“Yes! So please, please, won’t you believe in me?”

“Why should I?”

“So you’re a doubter, eh?” she said. “Then watch this, you skeptic!”

She waved her
hands over the crystal ball, and it lit up. I flew down to the table for a closer look; my eyes aren’t as sharp as my ears, and sonar
doesn’t work on crystal ball displays.

Within was my
client and her father. She had just lost
a tooth. “See?” said the Tooth Fairy. “He’s got a film canister! And he puts the tooth in!” We watched him put the film canister under my
client’s pillow. The Tooth Fairy said,
“Oh, look, he removes his hand. But
wait! Has he palmed the film canister? Yes! And
has he put it away? Yes! And was there another film canister, same
size, same shape, same color, with the money in it, already under the pillow?”

“Yes?”

“Yes!”

I said, “Then your
big magic trick is just sleight of hand?”

She said, “Yes. But look! He bungled the swap! Badly! The
tooth is rattling around in his pocket! She
can hear it! She isn’t fooled at all!”

Inside the crystal
ball, my client and her father walked out the door, waited a moment, then
walked back in. The second canister was
there under the pillow, with the money in it, but you could see in my client’s
eyes that she wasn’t buying it.

The Tooth Fairy
wailed, “The illusion of me is shattered!I can’t bear to watch any more!” She waved her
hands over the crystal ball. It went
dark, and she said, “Sheer incompetence!You just can’t get good help nowadays!”

“Your client’s
father is deliberately raising your client to be an unbeliever!And he’s using me to do it!”

“Because of you, the
gods can’t feed off of her?”

The Tooth Fairy
said, “She’s worthless to them now! Every time she’s tempted to believe in them,
she’ll remember what happened with me!”

“She used to
believe in you, but now no longer?”

“Exactly! And as for your client’s father – he doesn’t
believe in me at all, but he
propagated me anyhow! And he did it just to disillusion her!”

“So that’s your scam? Then you are
just like your friend Vaccinia!”

“You got it,
dearie.”

“You’re a failed myth!You throw
the fight, just like Vaccinia!”

The Tooth Fairy shrugged.
“A myth gotta do what a myth gotta do.”

I said, “Your
failure confers immunity to other myths!
And the humans are exploiting this effect!”

“Hee, he-he-he heee!”

“You’re a meme-vaccine!You’re a ritual initiation into skepticism!”

The Tooth Fairy
declared, “I am a turncoat to the gods! I’m
a parody of divinity! All those
high-falutin’ gods and states and corporations… they want humans to believe in them forever. But the kiddies are
expected to outgrow me!One disillusionment, one personal mini-Enlightenment,
signed yours truly! Hee, he-he-he, heee!”

I blurted, “You’re
weird!”

“I get ’em young!Baby teeth, baby mind; they lose ’em both at once!”

I blurted, “So
have you! You’re cracked!”

“Who are you to talk?” she sneered. “You’re as bogus as I am!”

“What do you mean
by that?”

“You followed me through
a transformation chase!I went from a firefly to a robin to the Sun to
an electron to a squid to a marlin to a cat! And you went from an eagle to the Moon to a
photon to a whale to a fisherman to a dog!”

“So what?”

“Nothing real can do that!” the Tooth
Fairy screeched. “But I did, and so did you, dearie! Hee, he-he-he heee!”

“You’re crazy!”

“But it isn’t just
me. And it isn’t just you. It’s this whole wacky burg!”

The Tooth Fairy
ranted, “I denounce the spirits! I
denounce the superheroes! I denounce the
angels and the aliens! I denounce the demons
and the corporations! I denounce the
gods, and I denounce the ’Toons! They’re
fictions, all fictions! I denounce you, and I denounce myself!I DO NOT EXIST!”

“You are crazy!”

I had to get away.
I flew off the table and out of the tent.
The Tooth Fairy ran out of the tent and
shook her fist at me as I flapped away.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

I flew up Church Way in a
right-handed corkscrew. Traffic was
light: some robots, a Yeti, a bevy of witches, and a small dragon. I saw someone flying next to me, corkscrewing
left-hand, and I thought it was my mirror image.

“Not rat: mouse. Tooth mouse,” he said, then flapped off into
hyperspace.

He flicked ana, into the fourth dimension, to wing
his way back to when-and-where he started. And since he’s my future self, I’ll eventually
have to travel back in time, and say what he said, and hear what I said.

How weird, but
that’s a time-loop for you. Time travel
has strange logic. I try to avoid
time-loops, but I keep on getting caught in them anyhow.

Still, though, a
clue’s a clue – even if I got it from me. So there’s a tooth mouse. And a mouse is cousin to a rat. And Rickie-the-Rat mentioned his little cousin
Perez.

I stopped at the
next road-sign and hung out. I was at
the intersection of Church Way, Pico Street and Alvarado Avenue. I evoked a phone.

The phone
blossomed from a spark to a glowing disk. It went beep,
then it said, “Thank you for using Hellen Wireless. To whom may I direct your call?”

I said, “Tooth
Mouse Perez.”

The phone chirped
once, twice, and then a mouse picked up.

He said, “’Allo,
señor?” Through the phone, I saw him twitch his whiskers.

“My client wants
some information about the Tooth Fairy. You know her?”

“Of course I know her, we’re in the same
business! What do you want to know?”

“The basics.
Motive. Method.”

Tooth Mouse Perez said.
“Ahh! So you want the truth about the
Tooth?”

“You can put it
that way.”

“Are you sure you want the truth, señor? Can you handle it? ’Cause you know what they
say: ‘The truth will set you free–’”

“ ‘–but first
it’ll hurt’,” I replied. It’s an old
folk saying, here in Hellen. “Well, I
already got ten hurts from your big cousin, and six – no, seven – from Bugsy.”

Perez said, “You
got them both mad at you?” He had
half a laugh in his voice.

“It was a
misunderstanding. They said I was
comparing them to the Tooth Fairy. I
wasn’t, but they didn’t like it.”

“I bet they didn’t!”

“I just want the
truth. And you’re in the same business
as she is.”

“I could tell you
all about it, but would you believe me?”

“I’d rather hear
it from the Tooth Fairy herself.”

“Suit yourself,
señor. Now I don’t know exactly where she is, but I know where
you can find someone who does know.”

Tooth Mouse Perez
then gave me a place, an address, and a name. “Vaccinia,” he said. “Health worker. Works part-time as a receptionist. Also happens to be good buddies with the Tooth
Fairy.”

“How come?”

“They have the
same job, sort of. Tell him I sent you,
OK?”

“OK,” I said.

“And good luck, señor!”

“OK,” I said, and
signed off. The phone shrank to a point
and vanished. I thought, nice guy.

I Googled
directions: first west along Side Street, then up along Jasmine Way, and north on 9th Avenue.
Traffic was light; I saw a flock of ghosts, a pair of
hippogriffs, a centaur and a Nessie. At
the corner of 34th
Street, Vine
Way, and 9th
Avenue, down by the northwest corner, was my destination:
“Madame Ruth’s Mystic Emporium”.

I entered, flew to
the front desk, and there was my contact: Vaccinia, the receptionist. He was magnified to about my size: another free
size-adjustment.

“Hi there,” I
said. “I’m looking for the Tooth Fairy.”

The virus said, “Who’s looking for the Tooth Fairy? And why?”

I said, “I’m a
private ear.I just want to ask her a
few questions.”

Vaccinia said, “Hmph. I’m not talking to you.”

“Perez sent me.
Perez the tooth mouse.”

“So what?”

“He said that you
and she have the same job. What did he mean by that?”

That did the
trick. Vaccinia said, “Yes, we do have
the same job, now that I think about it… You really want the truth?About her? About me? You want the whole sordid story?”

“I’m all ears,” I
said.

“All right then! The truth is… the truth is…”

“Yes?”

Vaccinia wailed, “I’m a failure as a virus!”

I said, “There,
there, it can’t be that bad.”

“But it is, it is!
Tell me… would you call me a dangerous molecule? No, no,” Vaccinia cried, “Don’t lie to me, I’m not!
You see, I’m a cow virus, not a human
virus, but I took on the human immune system, anyhow.”

“And you lost?”

“Badly.The human leucocytes… well, they cracked my code.”

I said, “How embarrassing.”

Vaccinia wailed, “Humiliating! I conferred immunity! And not just to myself, but also to my brother Variola!”

“Who?”

“You might know him as Smallpox.”

“Oh, him. What did your brother think of your immunity
mishap?”

“He made fun of me. He said that my failure is more contagious
than I am!”

Ouch! “Sibling rivalry,” I said. “I’ve heard it often before.”

Vaccinia said, in
a low voice, “Then the human doctors
came, and they offered me… a little deal.They said, throw the fight.They said,
we will cultivate you. They promised to breed
me by the billions. And all I have to do
is lose.Every single time.”

“Winning by losing?
Nice work if you can get it!”

“You don’t understand;
you can’t refuse an offer like that. The
human doctors… they… they don’t take no for an answer.”

“So you said yes.”

“My brother used
to call me a turncoat, a collaborator, an informant!
He used to call me a traitor to viruskind!”

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

The
pocket monster dropped me, still tangled in the butterfly net, onto a table. He flew away and I was alone.

I pinged. The echo came back. It was Chapel Perilous, all right.

Two entered the
chapel and approached. ’Toons. Anthropomorphic. Human size, dwarfing me. One of them had long ears and a short tail. He was smoking a cigar. The other had big ears and a long tail. He was holding a flyswatter.

They stepped
closer, and I pinged them. The echo came
back and I saw who they were. I’d know
those faces anywhere. The long-eared one
was Bugsy. The long-tailed one was
Rickie-the-Rat.

Uh-oh.

Those two. Together. In Chapel Perilous. With me. This couldn’t be good.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The phone
blossomed from a spark to a glowing disk. It went beep, then it said, “Thank you for using Hellen Wireless. To whom
may I direct your call?”

I said, “The Tooth
Fairy.”

The phone droned,
“Sor-ree, that is not a list-ed num-ber.”

I signed off. The
phone shrank to a point and vanished. I thought, oh well, now I gotta do some
wing-work.

I flew out of my
office, into the street. Story Avenue,
tonight mostly closed. I flapped through
the fog. It was too foggy to see with
eyes, but my sonar worked fine.

The traffic was
light, mostly fellow sonar-users: a pod of dolphins, three orcas, and a
humpback. (The humpback was minified
down to human size. Size-adjustment is a
free public utility, here in Hellen.)

I passed a flock
of Greys, flying on radar. Their
personal radar, that is: not city radar. Show-offs. And phew, they stink! Then I pinged a gaggle of giddy ’Toons cruising
on Google.

I saw a Vegan,
hesitating at a corner, and I stopped to render assistance. The visitor from Vega was lost. It had been sent to “23rd street and 17th avenue”.

“I see,” I said. “Well, I’m sorry to say, stranger, that was a
joke at your expense.”

“Don’t those roads
meet?” said the energy crystal from the blue star.

“Those roads are skew,” I explained. “Non-co-planar. Look, in this town you got to think 3-D! Streets run east-west, avenues go north-south,
ways head up-down!”

The Vegan said, “And
you name the roads, not the cubes or the planes?”

“It just turned
out that way. I admit it’s kind of
stupid that we name the roads but not the cubes or the planes; but as is the system is almost efficient, and
it does add character, and that’s how we do things here in Hellen.”

“But how do you
find your way? I need to get to the
recharge station!”

“Use your Google,”
I said.

The Vegan flickered.
“My what?”

“Your Google. Evoke it, in your mind’s eye. Go ahead.”

The Vegan spun and
blazed blue, then it said, “Ah. I see it now. ‘From here east on this street; up at Star Way, then north two blocks to Night
Street and Light Avenue’.”

“There you go,” I
said. “Just evoke your Google. Don’t worry about paying; it’s a free public utility. Same as radar, radio, web and phone. And flight too, of course.”

The Vegan thanked
me. I said, “Welcome to Hellen!” and
flapped away.

Traffic was light:
two demigods, a school of trilobites and a snail riding a flying saucer. I flew a cube north on Story Avenue. At the Registry of Deeds I turned down on Fortuna
Way, then three cubes down I turned west on Market Street. Seven cubes west and I was at the police
station, at the corner of State, Market and Church, catty-corner to the
Pyramid.

I flew in and flapped
over to the break-room. There I found my
contact on the force, Officer Beelzy. He
was reading this month’s issue of “Bad Cop Gazette”. I greeted him, and asked where his partner
White Mike was.

“What a
coincidence. I’m here on a break-and-enter
case too.” I laid out my client’s case
to him, then asked what he and Mike know about the Tooth Fairy.

Officer Beelzy put
down the “Bad Cop Gazette”. He picked up
his pitchfork and rose to his full three meters of height. His eyes glowed red, his pointy tale twitched,
and his big black leather wings flapped, wide and slow.

Officer Beelzy has
leather wings, like me – but his wings, unlike mine, are impractical for
flight.They’re too small for his body
size. Really, his wings – like White Mike’s
feather wings – are for signaling. Just
then, by flapping them wide and slow like that, he was signaling: I’m real mad so pay close attention.

I paid close
attention.

Officer Beelzy
rumbled, “Kid, I will tell you just this once. Drop the case.”

I said, “But
Beelzy!”

“Bub,” he rumbled,
“I’m warning you because I almost like you. Some cases are nothing but trouble. This is one of them.”

“What do you
mean?”

“I mean I won’t
tell on you, but I’ve got to tell my partner. And Mike’s a featherhead. A good
cop. So he’ll follow the rules. He’ll tell the higher-ups.”

“Wait! You’re saying this case goes up?”

“I’m not saying
yes, I’m not saying no. I’m saying, lay
off.”

“I’ll track this
thing, even if it goes all the way up to the Mayor!”

Officer Beelzy’s eyes
dimmed from red to dark. He folded his
wings. “Intemperate words,” he rumbled. “You
will regret them.”

I left then,
disgusted. Down the corridor, I passed a
marble wall. To me all hard flat
surfaces are sonar mirrors, so I pinged myself. I was me, all right. Fur, claws, fangs, leather wings, and big
gnarly ears. Handsome fellow.

Out the door and
into the street. I spiraled down Church Way. Traffic was light. I passed three wizards, a school of opabinia
and a gremlin, spiraling up.

Down and down and
down, and the further down, the worse the neighborhood got. Church
Way used to be entirely a nice neighborhood, but
that was before the conmen, crooks and thugs moved in.

Down, down, down. Finally I reached my destination: The Wizard’s
Git. It’s a bar, or so its neon sign says.
Really it’s a front for the Thieves’
Guild. I figured, if I couldn’t get a
straight answer from one side of the law, then I should ask the other side.

I found the capo
of the Thieves’ Guild, holding forth at the bar as usual. I settled on the bar next to him. After a few pleasantries, I got down to
business. But when I mentioned the Tooth
Fairy, Tricky Dick got defensive.

“I deny everything,”
he said. The capo sweated. He glanced from side to side.

“Aw, come on, Tricky
Dick,” I wheedled. “I’m sure your gang would
know about a caper as crooked as this – ”

“We are not crooks! We’re the Thieves’
Guild.”

“And pillage is
your privilege! So either she’s muscling
in on your official franchise, or she’s working for you. Which is it?”

Tricky Dick said,
“Unask the question!”

“Don’t go all Zen
on me! Tell me the truth!”

“I am not a liar!”

“Meaning that you
are! I’ve had it with this cover-up!”

“I am not keeping
any secrets!”

“That settles it,
you are!I’ll track this thing, even if it goes all the
way down to your boss!” And again, I left in disgust. Looking back, I can see that those too were
intemperate words. I didn’t know that at
the time.

Out the door and
into the street. I flew up Church Way a
couple of cubes when I noticed something odd. There was no traffic at all. I was alone on the street.

No, not quite
alone. A pocket monster was there. It trilled “Cheekapoo! Cheekapoo!” and
attacked.

I had no time to
evade. The pocket monster swooped at me,
waved something—

Aack!

I was caught! In a
butterfly net! Sonar-invisible! I hadn’t
seen it!

My captor trilled,
“Cheekapoo! Cheekapoo!” and dove into a downward spiral, with me in tow. Down and down Church Way. I struggled against my bonds, in vain.

Down and down. My captor trilled “Cheekapoo! Cheekapoo!”

“Where are you
taking me?”

“Cheekapoo!”

“How far down are
we going? To the Bottom Gate? Are you taking me—”

“Cheekapoo!”

“—to Chapel Perilous?!”

Down and down and
down we twisted. There, ahead, below,
was the Bottom Gate. We swooped aside at
the last moment, and entered Chapel Perilous.

Monday, June 25, 2012

This week I shall blog "Toothseeker", a six-chapter short story starring Mischief, one of my daughter's long-ago dolls. (With a couple of cameos by Sogwa, my daughter's long-ago favorite cat doll.) This story is a noir detective tale, revealing the shocking Truth behind the Tooth.

***

Toothseeker

1. Name that Scam

It was a dark and
foggy night in Hellen, the sky-city halfway to anywhere. I was hanging out in my office when the door
creaked open, and in walked this dame.

Walked? Nah. She
glided. She crept in on feet as quiet as
fog.

Ping, I said. The echo came back, and I saw my guest. The room was pitch-black dark – I like it that
way – but I can see with my ears.

That’s my job. I’m a private ear.

So I said ping. And I said
ping ping ping. Then pingpingpingpingping…

By sonar, I
watched her glide in. I’d know that
prowl anywhere. I stopped pinging and I said,
“Hi, Sogwa.”

She looked straight
at me and meowed, “Hi, Mischief.” She
could see me fine in the pitch black. Her
big oval eyes, my big gnarly ears.

I chirped, “It’s
good to see you, doll. How you been?”

She purred, “I’m
fine, boy-toy.” We kid each other, she
and I. She stood up high on her hind
legs; I stretched down from the ceiling,
where I’d been hanging out. We rubbed
noses.

A nose kiss. We’re old friends. We don’t lip-kiss like humans; that’s an oddity in the animal kingdom – and besides,
Sogwa and I have fangs.

So we rubbed noses
– what a doll! – and we pulled back. She
sat on the floor, tail curled around her feet. I clung to the ceiling, wrapped in my wings. She looked up, I looked down. I said, “So what brings you here?”

“Business,” she
said. “I have a job for you. Detective work.”

“What do you need
a private ear for?”

Sogwa slowly
blinked her big oval eyes. “I’m here
for… the kid.”

“Hannah? Up in the daytime?”

“The same.”

“How is she?”

Sogwa said, “She’s
fine, but stuff happens. She lost a
tooth.”

“No!”

“Don’t worry, a
new one will grow in.”

“So what’s the
problem?”

“It’s that old
tooth,” said Sogwa. “Somebody took it
away. It vanished, practically under her
nose. She didn’t see who got it, or how.”

“Theft?”

“More like trade. The tooth disappeared from under the pillow,
and some cash was there in its place.”

“That’s weird,” I
said. “A forced trade?”

“The kid’s O.K.
about that, but she’s wondering.Just how does this Tooth Fairy character do
that trick?”

“‘Tooth Fairy’? Good, at least we have an I.D. So the kid wants the M.O.?”